Kyle Busch fell a lap down at Talladega and came back to win. So when a steering problem dropped him to the back of the field at Daytona, he didn't panic.
He simply settled in for the long drive back to the front.
Busch bested Carl Edwards in a door-to-door drag race last night to win Daytona's traditional Fourth of July weekend 400-miler, which ended under caution with Busch earning his Sprint Cup Series-best sixth victory. It was his 12th victory of the season spanning all three of NASCAR's top series.
“That's him,” crew chief Steve Addington shrugged.
Say what you want about Busch, the driver NASCAR fans love to hate. But the kid doesn't quit, not when a checkered flag is on the line.
“It's me who has to stay a little calm and get back in the rhythm of what was going on,” Busch said of his knack for overcoming adversity at restrictor-plate tracks.
He had to wait several anxious moments for this one, which wasn't decided until NASCAR reviewed the running order at the moment the final caution came out.
Busch and Edwards were drag racing with a little over a lap remaining when a multicar accident brought out the caution behind them. The field was frozen, and while Edwards was pretty sure Busch was a nose ahead, no one was 100 percent certain.
“I can't believe that we're here right now,” Busch said in Victory Lane. “We didn't have the best car. Luckily we were leading there when it mattered most.”
Edwards finished second and was disappointed not to have one last lap.
“Man, I hate to lose the thing like that,” Edwards said. “I wish we could have raced a little longer.”
Matt Kenseth, Edwards' teammate at Roush Fenway Racing, was third. He was followed by Kurt Busch, Roush driver David Ragan and Robby Gordon.
Jeff Gordon seemed headed to his first victory of the season as he led 46 laps late and was handily holding off Busch as the race wound down. But with four laps to go, Busch pulled inside of Gordon and claimed the lead mere seconds before a multicar accident brought out a caution.
It set up an overtime sprint to the finish, and Busch was slow on the restart. It stacked the traffic up behind him and Edwards ran into the back of Gordon, sending him spinning through the grass.
Edwards darted to the outside to move around the action and, with a push from Kenseth, pulled alongside Busch to set up a thrilling drag race. But they didn't get a chance to race to the checkered flag because of contact between Travis Kvapil and Sam Hornish Jr. that triggered a multicar accident that froze the field.
Today's races
Ryan Briscoe gave Team Penske its fourth straight Indycar Series pole on the 3.4-mile, 11-turn Watkins Glen circuit in upstate New York, with Justin Wilson, one of the nine drivers transitioning from the defunct Champ Car World Series starting alongside.
McLaren's Heikki Kovalainen captured his first Formula One pole position, more than half a second faster than Red Bull's Mark Webber in qualifying for the British Grand Prix at Silverstone.
